Track bash July 2021

Day 1 (Sunday)

Huntingdon to Milford Haven

Last updated 2021-11-18

A significant part of my plans for this trip was to travel the three south-west Wales branches. Examining timetables showed that the best option was to travel to Milford Haven on one day, then cover the other two on the next. I'd also never gone on the Heart of Wales line. So here was an obvious start: get to Shrewsbury, take the Heart of Wales southwards to wherever the train terminated, then get a service to Milford Haven. I was starting on a Sunday, which mean that I'd probably have to go via London. So why not take the Chiltern route to Oxford, which is somewhere else I've never been, then up to Shrewsbury?

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

I had a good start. My wife and daughter dropped me off at Huntingdon station about 20 minutes before my train to London was due. It was running late, but the previous service was also late and about to arrive. Result! At King's Cross it turned out the Circle Line was shut for engineering works, so I caught a bus to the nearest stop to Marylebone station on the Marylebone Road, then walked the last bit. The service to Oxford is half-hourly and I was an hour early for my train, so I thought I could be an hour ahead throughout as far as Shrewsbury.

The barriers wouldn't recognize my ticket (this would be common during the week, usually with codes like "not valid at this station" or "London Underground ticket") and I had to find a manned barrier and persuade them to let me through against the flow of arriving passengers. The train was at one of the far platforms; I ran up there as fast as I could (not very fast) and, as I reached him, the man by the "Close Doors" button pressed it, so that the doors literally slammed in my face. Okay, walk back down the main platform (which, for some reason, was pretending to be King's Cross) and get some food. Then all the way back to catch the next train, which would give me half an hour extra in Oxford and perhaps, if I was lucky, a late Cross-Country train. No, a few minutes before it was due to depart, and after I was comfortably settled in it, it was announced as cancelled due to staff shortage. So I end up on the planned train anyway, which got me to Oxford on time.

At Oxford I got a coffee and a reservation on the next train (apparently they're compulsory but there's no way to book one without buying a ticket). All went well until we came to a stop outside Leamington Spa.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Apparently the driver of the train ahead was worried about a bridge and wanted it examined before going over it. So we were almost 30 minutes late into Leamington Spa. We didn't do much catching up and it was soon clear that I was going to miss the connection to Shrewsbury and therefore the Heart of Wales. Time to replan.

As the tables below show, I baled out at Birmingham Black Hole and headed for Milford Haven via Gloucester and Cardiff. At least I got to tick off the Welsh half of the "Great Way Round" (the GWR to Cardiff prior to the opening of the Severn Tunnel), if not the Heart of Wales. I did think about doing a bit around Cardiff and catching my original train to Milford Haven, but in the end decided not to, meaning a scenic ride mostly in daylight and a rather happier publican who didn't have to wait up until almost midnight.

Today's trains table

Today's route table

New lines today

• Chiltern Oxford route, from Bicester curve to Oxford
• "Great Way Round" from Gloucester to Severn Tunnel Junction
• Swansea and Carmarthen triangles
• Milford Haven branch from Whitland onwards

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